I come across a wide
variety of characters and personalities in my role as a recruitment trainer and it often surprises me how often consultants
react uncomfortably as soon as I start talking about sales.
The biggest problem with selling is the word itself. It’s amazing the impact
that certain labels have on people’s thinking. Customers hear the word “salesperson” or “consultant”
and immediately go on the defensive. More often than not, they imagine the stereotypical wide plastic smile and pushy manner,
even before the seller gets into their stride.
Strangely, it’s not just the customer that sees the word sales in a stereotypical way. The
word can have a strange effect on the people who are selling as well.
All too often sellers metamorphose into a kind of B grade “Super-hero”
the minute they put their sales hat on; changing personalities and exhibiting their “Captain Persuasion” super-powers.
The current series of “The
Apprentice” is a great example of this behaviour. Here is a group of well educated, ambitious business people and entrepreneurs
(including a recruitment consultant), who consistently make an absolute hash of every sales task that they face. Pushy attitudes,
old fashioned “telling selling”, poor objection handling and the negotiation skills that collapse like a paper
bag. These are just a few of the available tips on how not to sell,
but their biggest crime of all is their almost total failure to ask questions during their sales pitches.
All of this makes for highly
entertaining TV, as we take pleasure in their often painful antics. However, the worrying thing is that my experience as a
recruiter and trainer for the past 20 years, tells me that there are thousands of recruitment consultants making the same
elementary mistakes every day.
Allow me to let you into a badly kept secret. The days of selling
business to business are over. This is the age of “getting bought”.
Let’s look at the facts from the buyer’s
point of view. Everyone with a specific want or need wants to buy. The problem is that in most cases, they don’t want
to be sold to.
Imagine for a moment, that there is a line on the ground. The line represents the decision to purchase your goods or
services. Before making the choice to buy, the customer is in a state of dissatisfaction with their current situation (they
have a need that is not yet satisfied). After making a decision to purchase and crossing the line on the floor, they increase
their satisfaction and will feel happier.
Think about the last important or reluctant purchase that you made. Prior to making the decision
to buy, the chances are that you found the process a little stressful, you may even have been reluctant to make a decision
or unsure that you were making the right choice. Now remember how you felt after making your decision. As long as it was a
good one, you would have felt happier, relieved and in some cases motivated by your new position on the other side of the
line.
Your customers find themselves
in this position every day. Every customer wants to cross the line, but the paradox is that if someone tries to push or drag
them over with traditional sales techniques, then they will often resist.
As the purveyor of the services, your best chance of success is
to ensure that you are bought by your customers. Focus your efforts on showing the customer the best options for crossing
the line and then helping them over.
To be successful in B2B sales in the 21st century, you should throw away that old features
based sales pitch with stock answers to objections. Consultants must concentrate on building relationships through honesty
& integrity, product knowledge and most importantly, effective questioning techniques.
The most successful B2B sales people are bought before
they have to sell.
Andy Hurren
Pennington Training
